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Gene Colan (Earth-1218)
Daredevil Gene took over for Daredevil in 1966 while Stan Lee was still writing for that comic. Gene worked best with Stan Lee. He got along well with him and Stan took on so many projects that he simply didn’t have the time to devote to writing a full script. That suited Colan well because he didn’t have enough patience to read a full script. When Stan wrote for Daredevil, he kept the writing to bare bones, which allowed Gene to set his own pace. “The fact that he was blind and could do all these things really appealed to me,” Colan said of his stint on the title. “I tried to figure out a way to actually illustrate his blindness so that the reader could follow it. He had an uncanny knack of actually seeing better than a sighted person because of his keen senses, and I tried to illustrate that in some vague way with pictures of what he saw. Strictly out of my imagination.” Gene started on Daredevil in issue #20, where he brought back the Owl, originally created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett. introduced the Jester, who would become a longtime villain. He and Stan co-created the Emissaries of Evil in Daredevil Annual #1. Stan Lee stayed on writing duties with Gene until issue #50, where writer Roy Thomas started. This partnership lasted until issue #71 when Gerry Conway took over writing credits. In issue #81, Colan and Conway brought the Black Widow into the series. This is often considered the most interesting of the Black Widow stories due to the magnetism of the romance between the two and how involved she was in the stories, so-much-so that the Daredevil comic was renamed Daredevil and the Black Widow for a time( issue #92 - issue #107). In issue #87, Daredevil moved to San Francisco, making for an entirely different building and landscape style for the heavily researched Colan. Gene finished his run on Daredevil with issue #100 in 1973. This is the comic run that he is most remembered for by the majority of his fans. Falcon While T'Challa came first (Black Panther is billed as the first "African" hero), Gene, along with Stan Lee, created the first "African-American" superhero. Gene is recognized for his part in the creation of Falcon in Captain America Vol 1 117. Blade Blade first appeared in the July, 1970 issue of Tomb of Dracula 10. He was created by Gene and Marve Wolfman and is one of the earliest African-European superheroes, being British-born. In fact, Gene illustrated the complete, 70-issue run of the horror title The Tomb of Dracula. Gene, when he found out that Marvel was going to produce a Dracula title, said he had lobbied for the assignment. "When I heard Marvel was putting out a Dracula book, I confronted editor Stan Lee about it and asked him to let me do it. He didn't give me too much trouble but, as it turned out, he took that promise away, saying he had promised it to Bill Everett. Well, right then and there I auditioned for it. Stan didn't know what I was up to, but I spent a day at home and worked up a sample, using Jack Palance as my inspiration and sent it to Stan. I got a call that very day: 'It's yours.'" Howard the Duck Colan worked with Steve Gerber on the Howard the Duck series. The character was so successful that the title character was nominated by the All-Night Party, a fictional political party, as their nominee in the Presidential campaign of 1976. Howard the Duck actually received thousands of write-in votes in the election. The Gerber-Colan team created Doctor Bong in Howard the Duck #15 | Notes = Colan was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2005 for his work on . * In a new 40-minute documentary titles "Gene Colan Revisited", Gene reveales how film was a huge influence on his art. | Trivia = * Gene Colan was given the nicknames "Gene the Dean," "Genial Gene," and "Gentleman Gene" by Stan Lee. * Gene was the only artist in the mid-60's to 70's who was not told to draw like Jack Kirby, Stan referred to Colan's artwork as, "painting with a pencil". * He did his first superhero work for Marvel under the pseudonym Adam Austin. He couldn't use his real name because he was working for DC Comics at the time. * Gene has acting credentials, sort of. Eric Roberts (actor and brother of Julia Roberts) had a role in the 1990 film "The Ambulance" where he played a comic book artist. The director wanted a scene of him drawing, but Roberts could not draw, so Gene was brought in. His hands were made up to match the younger Roberts and was filmed from the hands down while he drew. * He did some insert artwork on the album "Hellbilly Deluxe" (released Aug 1998), the first solo album of Rob Zombie, credited as Gene "The Mean Machine" Colan. He also contributed some stories and art to Spookshow International, Rob's comic book line. Colan also has "unpublished" work on Rob's web page featuring Rob's first band, White Zombie, Dracula, and Howard the Duck. * Gene was a teacher at Manhattan's School Of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology. | OfficialWebsite = | Links = Gene Colan Appreciation Society https://www.facebook.com/groups/27747758232/ * On Wikipedia * Death announcement }}